Knowledge

Useful technical information and lessons learned.

How to Make Your Office's Internet Connection More Reliable with a Linksys / Cisco RV042/RV082 Router

When Internet access is critical for your business, consider using two separate Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The second ISP is kept in reserve as a spare, a hot backup that you can automatically use if your primary Internet connection goes down. In this article, we explore using a Linksys / Cisco RV042/RV082 Router to inexpensively create a backup Internet connection that can automatically switchover. We prefer the RV082 over the RV042 because the RV082 is rack-mount and does not require an external power supply.

Problems Sending Email with a New ISP or from Remote Locations (hotels, airports, coffee shops)

Did you ever have problems sending email with your laptop computer when you were at a remote location? This article describes why the problem exists and how to successfully send email when you are in a remote location and encounter problems.

How to Use WPA-PSK on a Netgear WGR 614 Wireless Router

Wi-Fi Protected Access with Pre-Shared Keys (WPA-PSK) is an improved way to secure your wireless Internet access device. In this article we discuss WPA-PSK on the Netgear WGR 614 Wireless Router.

IDE Hard Drive Naming Conventions in Linux & IDE Cable Usage

How to install and configure IDE hard drives and IDE drive cables under Linux.

Business Internet Connections:Faster vs. More Reliable - Which is Better?

Should your business buy a faster Internet connection or go for one that is more reliable? When trying to evaluate your available options for an Internet connection, many businesses face the dilemna of whether they should go with a super-fast connection based on newer technology, or a slower connection based on "tried and true" technology. This article provides our observations and opinions of 12 years of testing and evaluating Internet connections for businesses.

Your Technical Talent Just Quit - What do you do?

There has always been high turnover among IT staff for all the years we've been a part of this business. Question: How will the loss of a key computer staff person affect your business?

Computer Needs for Independent Investment Advisors

This article describes the computer equipment and computer services needed by Independent Investment Advisors. The emphasis is on keeping costs low, delivering top quality service, and staying compliant with regulatory obligations.

Resizing an LVM partition

Steps needed to resize an LVM (logical volume manager) partition.

Computing dirvish image disk usage

It's sometimes hard to detect the size of a dirvish backup image; here's one way to do it.

Microsoft Outlook: Hide Messages Marked for Deletion with IMAP

By default Outlook shows email messages marked for deletion with a strikeout line through the messages. Most people prefer to hide the message.

Microsoft Access Error 3163 with Union Queries

This article contains the solution to this problem: When trying to use the SQL Statement 'Union' to combine the results of two different queries, I got an error that says: "The field is too small to accept the amount of data you attempted to add. Try inserting or pasting less data." In my case I was trying to query SugarCRM tables for Notes and Emails and combine those results into a single query.

VoSKY Call Center Troubleshooting

The VoSKY Call Center (VCC) is a small hardware device that integrates a normal analog telephone and Skype. When the VCC is connected to your computer, a telephone line, and a telephone, you can make and receive Skype calls using your telephone. No other special equipment is required, and the VoSKY doesn't require separate electrical power - it draws current from its USB connection.

Using rsync and cygwin to Sync Files from a Linux Server to a Windows Notebook PC

If you travel away from your office with a Windows notebook PC, it's useful to always have the notebook's hard drive updated with the latest files from your office's Linux server. This article describes how we setup a client's notebook PC to do this download.

Automatically starting a cygwin X Window Server

How to start cygwin's X Server when you log in - without annoying popup text windows.

Finding which cygwin package contains a particular file

I often need to install a cygwin package to get a single file, but I can't find which package I need. This article explains how.

RV042 & RV082 System Log Config Settings

This is how we configure our RV042 & RV082 routers' System Log settings to send us email once a day.

VoIP Telephones – Using Your Internet Connection for Your Business Phone Service

This article, written for financial services professionals but useful for other professions too, will help you determine whether VoIP is appropriate for your business.

Reinstalling Windows on a Dell Dimension E521

I recently bought a Dell Dimension E521, and I wanted to reinstall Windows before I started using it. These are the steps I took.

Quick search bookmarks for FireFox 2.0

FireFox 2.0 does not come with any Quick Searches enabled on the Bookmarks menu. I use this feature all the time in FireFox 1.5. This file contains bookmarks that will install the Quick Searches into FireFox 2.0. Just go to Bookmarks, Organize Bookmarks, and import this file.

Add Google quick search to Internet Explorer

After importing this registry file and restarting Internet Explorer, you can type "g <search string>" into the IE address bar. This will submit your search string to Google.

Intel SE7210-TP1-E Motherboard BIOS Configuration

Documentation of the BIOS configuration steps, as done to the new SLP.NYC server built on March 14, 2006

Speakeasy Speed Test - Measure Your Available Bandwidth

 

Modifying Fedora Core 2 to support Daylight Savings Time changes in 2007

How to modify FC2 to support DST changing on March 11, 2007. Our servers are all in Eastern Standard Time, so I only show EST changes, but others should be obvious.

Summary of "Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population"

Summary of the Google published paper of the above title. Authors are: Eduardo Pinheiro, Wolf-Dietrich Weber and Luiz André Barroso of Google Inc. Paper was published in February, 2007.

APC Smart-UPS 420 Replacement Battery Vendors

We found two sources for replacement batteries for this UPS. Batteries for other UPS models are also available. Prices are as of 2007-02-21.

Decoding OpenSSL Files

We'd like to view OpenSSL files as text, but they're often encoded. Here's how to view certificates, keys, and certificate requests.

Email - Useful, Unusual Commands

 

Flush Cached DNS Settings on a Linux Server

 

vmstat - Understanding the Field Descriptions

vmstat is a useful Linux application that displays the loading of a Linux server in real time with regular updates. However, vmstat's column titles are cryptic, so this page lists the descriptions of the column titles and augments those descriptions with our own observations and experiences.

Supporting Content

 

Search / Find SEC Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs)

Use this link from the SEC to look at Form ADV filings of SEC Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs).

How to Embed Active Content in Plone Pages

Flash, youtube, and other active content are stripped out by Plone as a safety precaution. Here's a link to a page that shows how to make it work in Plone 2.5.x

Using samba / Linux as a File Share for Windows Apps

Most Windows applications work fine with samba. However there are a few, most notably the more recent versions of Intuit's QuickBooks, which do NOT work with samba. This page lists Windows applications that we have tested with samba, and whether there are any issues.

Ethernet pinouts

Pinouts for ethernet cables and jacks.

Verizon Business DSL - Westell DSL Modem Model F90-611016-06 Parameters